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The Consumer Isn’t a Moron, She Is Your Wife… So Be Creative

Today, my classmates and me had the opportunity to visit two communication offices. The first stop of the day was Ogilvy, a public relations (PR) firm. A presentation was given by Ann Maes (no relation to Maes beer). Maes is the head of Ogilvy PR. The firm is divided into 4 sectors: Ogilvy Advertising, Ogilvy One, Ogilvy PR, and Redworks. The advertising sector handles all of the advertising and digital media. Ogilvy One handles direct marketing, email marketing, and databases marketing, The PR sector handles public relations. Redworks is the production agency. The mission statement for Ogilvy is, “We bring out the inner greatness of brands, companies, institutions, and people.” I really enjoyed learning how this company likes to be innovative and creative.

Maes discussed how Ogilvy deals with cultural tension and how they strengthen a brand’s essence. This was something we learned about in our Global Communications and International Public Relations courses. We also had the opportunity, during the presentation, to see some of the campaigns and advertisements that the company has done in the past. Something else I enjoyed was the advice Maes gave for working on campaigns and for working in PR. Our class has previously worked on a campaign, and we will be working on another one in the fall semester, so the information was very helpful. An important technique she shared was to find a good idea, find a clear message, and to bring the idea to your audience in a way that they can understand it.

Cool Facts About Ogilvy:
– All of the companies are based in Asia Pacific!
– They like their work to be challenging!
– They have fancy clients! #OhYouFancyHuh
– They are pushing the use of mobile marketing.
-They believe if it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.

“If Ogilvy if to be gorgeous, wonderful, brilliant, fabulous, magical, beautiful, big and sexy, we must first be brave, idealistic, curious, playful, candid, intuitive, free-spirited, and persistent. These are the eight habits that define people, our culture, and everything that we do.” – David Ogilvy

The second place we visited was the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. I was very eager to visit because advertising is something that I am very interested in, but I haven’t had much experience with it. The presentation was given by the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Brussels, Yves Van Landeghen. Van Landeghen emphasized how the world, especially the media, was changing. Although Saatchi & Saatchi is a small company, their goal is to ultimately become a European company and not just a Belgian company. During the presentation, we learned how to create successful ads by connecting with the audience. “People are not rational beings. It’s not what you say it is, but what you feel it is,” said Van Landeghen. We learned how to design ads around the 4 archetypes: 1) Extraversion, release, 2) Individual, career, and perform, 3) Introversion, control, and 4) Tradition, family, and together. We also had the opportunity to look at some of the campaigns that have been designed by the agency along with some other amazing, successful ads. Van Landeghen explained what works well and what doesn’t work at all when creating ads. This company also places a huge emphasis on creativity in their work, which is awesome.